richard pierce

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24 December 2012

As I get ready to turn my machines off for over a week, the time has come for a brief reflection on this year. I know I still owe posts for my summer travels, for many things, but now's not the time.

This year has left me totally and utterly exhausted, as never before. It's been one of incredible highs and seemingly unsurmountable lows, of long periods of creativity and even longer periods of frustrated creativity because I've had to shoe-horn myself into the role of a marketeer rather than just being able to write or think. For someone who is by nature very shy and retiring, that's been a bit of a trial.

To have my first novel published at the age of 51 has naturally been one of the highs; to be shopping around my second novel to other publishers because it's not considered a commercial proposition by my current publisher is one of the lows. My mother's death in June at the age of 86 was the very very low, soothed only by a sense of relief that her long struggle with dementia was finally over.

All of these things I would not have been able to survive without the support, first and foremost, of my wife and children, nor without the willing arms of old friends and new. That has been the biggest high of this year - to realise that my family love me through thick and thin, to make, at my advanced age, new friends who, I think, have become friends for life. Oddly enough, two of those are from Radioland; the redoubtable Simon Saynor from Sine FM, and the cuddly Stephen Bumfrey from BBC Radio Norfolk. Thank you, both of you.

Thank you, too, to the book bloggers, too numerous to mention, who have been kind enough to review Dead Men, and to review it positively, and to let me revel in the glow of having written a critically acclaimed novel. Thanks, too, to those who nominated Dead Men for the Guardian First Book Award.

Over the past three years, I have written 5 novels. It's time for a rest, time to re-evaluate what I do and why I do it.

I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and a fruitful New Year. May your gods, or whatever spirits guide you, watch over you and yours, and bring you what you wish for most.

2 December 2012

Well, a mix-up in diaries meant I got to do my second solo show in this season of Radio Stradbroke's Sunday Sessions, and the three hours just zipped by. I managed to play 39 tracks in 3 hours, 13 tracks an hour. Now that's what I call music. Like I said on air "Radio Stradbroke - less talk, more music."Thanks as always to all who listened and sent messages through all sorts of social (and unsocial) media.I can't say I met anyone exciting walking there or back, nor that I observed a guerilla war between leaves and men. I can say, though, that the weather was gorgeous, and that I love the freezing cold when the sun is out and I don't have to risk getting wet.This afternoon I've put up some outside Christmas lights on the buddleia athe back of the house, chopped more things down in the drive, written 500 more words on what will now definitely be known as The Failed Assassin rather than 31 Days of Shade, and brought the washing in. Oh, and emptied the cat tray. Next things on the list are writing more words and putting up the podcast of today's show.Meanwhile, here's the running order, with the durations of the tracks, just in case anyone's as geeky as me and tried to plan running orders to the second. I think I only overran by about 90 seconds today. Good job there wasn't a newsreader sitting there waiting.R

00:04:22Burning
Brigantines - Married to the Sea

00:03:04Marion
- Sleep

00:03:58Modesty
- Love is Strong

00:03:36Paramore
- Ignorance

00:02:34Ideal
- Rote Liebe

00:02:24Blood
Command - Five Inches of a Car Accident

00:03:10Knust
Fot - Du e saa fin

00:01:43The
Arbeidsloese - Sweet Nicotine

00:04:51PIL
- One Drop

00:04:27Missing
Andy - The Way We're Made (Made in England)

00:03:43Billy
Bragg - Never Buy the Sun

00:03:48Frank
Turner - Reasons Not to be an Idiot

00:03:37Emily
& Florence - Drumming Song

00:04:22Emily
& Florence - Solace

00:04:10Jack
Stevens - Camden Dollybird

00:04:11Jack
Stevens - Sweetheart's Anniversary

00:03:23Cathedrals
& Cars - Leaving No Reminders

00:03:31The
Pilots - Somewhere

00:03:13Example
- Never ever getting back together

00:03:27Hurra
Torpedo - Total Exclipse of the Heart

00:03:14Los
Colorados - Hot 'n Cold

00:04:39Thirty
Seconds to Mars - Bad Romance

00:03:29Jessie
J - Do It Like A Dude

00:04:16Alex
Clare - Too Close

00:04:41RJ
Productions - 526

00:03:19Spetakkel
- Kem Rokker

00:03:34O-Zone
- Numa Numa

00:02:34The
Grand Spectacular - Being a Dickhead's Cool

00:03:22Kaptein
Sabeltann - Sjoeroeverne Kommer

00:04:26Of
Monsters & Men - Little Talks

00:04:29The
Waterboys - The Hosting of the Shee 00:04:08Arlie
Mucks - (Yellow Light Means) Speed Up or Slow Down